Roanoke author Beth Macy seems off to a fast start in her new field: Democratic congressional candidate.
Her campaign announcement in November drew such a packed house to the old Fire Station No. 1 in downtown Roanoke that some supporters had to gather across the street in Century Plaza.
She quickly picked up an endorsement from Sen. Tim Kaine and even a Hollywood celebrity — former “Batman” actor Michael Keaton, who also starred in the miniseries based on Macy’s best-seller, “Dopesick.”
She’s been the subject of a flattering story in Politico that likened her to the liberal version of JD Vance, a fellow Ohio native who also has written about Appalachia.
Then last week came two more drops of good news for Macy’s campaign:
An analysis by the journalist G. Elliot Morris of the data site Strength in Numbers produced the shocking result that President Donald Trump’s approval ratings are so low in the 6th Congressional District — the second-most Republican district in the state — that Republican incumbent Ben Cline might be vulnerable in a “wave” election. (Vulnerble is a relative term. He rates the chance of a Democratic victory in the 6th at 6% to 8% in a D+8% environment nationally, which is on the high side and probably unlikely, but the fact that the odds aren’t 0% is still striking, given the history of that district).
Finally, Macy’s campaign announced it had raised $615,000 in less than two months. The deadline for filing congressional campaign reports isn’t until Jan. 31 so we don’t have a Cline number to compare it with, but we can compare Macy’s haul with what other candidates have gone ahead and announced — and Macy has raised a lot. Here’s perhaps the most relevant comparison: Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor, who narrowly lost a statewide primary for attorney general last year, is the best-funded Democrat in the 1st District, now held by Republican Rob Wittman. Taylor last week announced that she’d raised “nearly $400,000,” so Macy, a first-time Democratic candidate in a bright red district, has outraised a former statewide Democratic candidate in a potentially swing district.
The 6th District remains an uphill climb for any Democrat, and not just because of the steep grade on Interstate 81 over Buffalo Creek in Rockbridge County. Nonetheless, these are a lot of things going not just well, but very well, for Macy so far.
Now consider this: The biggest threat to Macy’s campaign right now isn’t Cline, or even the two other Democrats seeking their party’s nomination, Pete Barlow of Augusta County and Ken Mitchell of Rockingham County. It’s an anonymous staffer with the National Democratic Redistricting Committee who knows how to use a mapping program — and the determination of Democrats in both Richmond and Washington to redraw Virginia’s congressional districts to produce more favorable results in this fall’s elections. Their desire to gerrymander Virginia to the maximum extent possible could move Macy into a blue district — but not one she could win because there’s an even better-funded Democrat there.
Let’s walk through this.
Texas Republicans started all this when they decided to embark on a rare mid-decade redistricting to produce some extra seats; that prompted a response by Democrats in California to do the same and set off a nationwide rush to gerrymander maps to the advantage of one party or another. Virginia had seemed immune to such partisanship. In 2020, voters approved a constitutional amendment to take the power of redistricting away from the majority party in the General Assembly and instead hand it to a bipartisan commission (or the state Supreme Court) with instructions to produce “fair” maps. Then, last October, Democrats hastily called a special session to ram through a new constitutional amendment that would let them temporarily set aside that commission so they could draw their own maps. The General Assembly must pass that amendment again in the upcoming session (it will) and then there will be a special election, probably in April, where voters will get their say.
The question at the moment is not whether the amendment will pass but what the maps would look like. Virginia’s congressional delegation is currently six Democrats, five Republicans.
Punchbowl News reports that “The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, the party’s national redistricting hub, has presented two potential configurations to members.”
One of those is a map that produces a 9-2 result, with the two surviving Republicans being Cline in the 6th and Morgan Griffith of Salem in the 9th.
The other map is a 10-1 map that leaves just Griffith in the 9th, simply because there’s no way to draw a Democratic district in Southwest Virginia. The 10-1 version, Punchbowl reports, puts all the other four Republican House members into Democratic-leaning districts and creates an open seat which it describes as a “deep-blue seat that snakes from the DC suburbs across the state to the Shenandoah Valley.”
It’s unclear if Punchbowl actually saw the maps, but we’ve seen enough other maps that they might look something like this:
The common theme in these maps is that the best way, maybe even the only realistic way, to produce a 10-1 map is to draw Radford, Blacksburg and Roanoke into the same district as Charlottesville.
Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, a powerful force in the legislature, has long insisted on a 10-1 map. “I said in August of 2025 that the maps will be 10-1 and I’m sticking with that today,” she posted Friday on social media.
Even state Sen. Schuyler Van Valkenburg, D-Henrico County and a high school civics teacher, posted agreement: “If democracy is in danger from Trump’s attempts to mid-decade redraw in Texas, Miss and NC then we must act accordingly. In Jan, I’m not voting to send redistricting to voters just to reinforce the status quo. We can get 8-3 w/ the current maps. 10-1. Right @SenLouiseLucas?”
As Brandon Jarvis of the Virginia Scope observed: “This was likely the last Democrat in Virginia who would agree to a 10-1 map — so if he’s onboard like it appears here — then the chances are high.”
Here’s where all these machinations in Washington and Richmond come home to Roanoke — and Macy’s campaign.
First, it’s clear from the Punchbowl reporting that these new maps aren’t being drawn in Virginia, they’re being drawn for Virginia on the other side of the Potomac. If you’re OK with gerrymandering, or even if you’re against gerrymandering, maybe the origin of the maps doesn’t matter, but it is a curious technical point.
Second, and more to the point of this column, a 10-1 map (assuming it connects Roanoke with Charlottesville) is an existential threat to Macy’s campaign. Why? Because there are already two Democratic candidates from Charlottesville and Albemarle County — the more important being former Rep. Tom Perriello, the other being Albemarle Supervisor Mike Pruitt. A 10-1 map might also draw another contender from Macy’s base in the Roanoke Valley: Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, has expressed interest in running. For now, I’m just going to focus on the candidates who have actually declared.
Periello, like Macy, has also gotten off to a fast start — an even faster one. He’s been endorsed by both Sen. Mark Warner and Sen. Tim Kaine, and also raised more than $700,000 in an even shorter period of time than Macy.
Here’s the dilemma for Democrats: The party sometimes has had a hard time finding any candidates in rural, Republican districts. Right now, though, Democrats have two of them — both well-known and well-funded — in adjoining districts. However, with the 10-1 map that Lucas and others are pushing, Democrats in whatever that Roanoke-to-Charlottesville district is numbered will have to choose between the two.
Perriello would seem to have the natural advantage if it came to that. There are almost twice as many Democratic voters in Albemarle/Charlottesville than there are in the Roanoke Valley. In last year’s Democratic primaries, Albemarle and Charlottesville together saw 16,120 Democratic voters; the Roanoke Valley 8,747.
Virginia Democrats are widely embracing this mid-cycle redistricting, although Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger has notably called it an “option,” not a certainty. Barlow, one of the three Democrats seeking his party’s nomination in the 6th, is the only Democrat I’m aware of to come out against redistricting altogether. “Evidence from the 2025 election reveals that a qualified Democrat who takes rural issues seriously can send Ben Cline packing without relying on redistricting,” he wrote in an opinion piece in Cardinal in November.
Macy and Perriello, the two presumed front-runners for the Democratic nominations in their respective districts (based on endorsements, money and name recognition) have both endorsed redistricting.
Here’s the statement Macy sent when I asked about her position on redistricting: “MAGA Republicans are shooting civilians in the streets, invading other countries without congressional authorization, destroying the social contract Americans have relied on for nearly a century, and redrawing districts mid decade. Democrats need to fight back to restore checks and balances in our nation. I’m proud our leaders in Virginia are doing just that.”
And Perriello: “What Texas did was steal the power of Virginia voters — whether Republican, Democrat or independent — to hold Washington accountable for skyrocketing costs and corruption. I’m glad the General Assembly is fighting back against efforts to silence the voice of Virginia voters in these important midterm elections. I will keep running for the 5th District, even if district lines shift, because people across this region are saying the same thing — prices have to come down, paychecks need to go up, and Congress needs to start paying attention to the people they claim to represent. People across our region are sick of Representatives like John McGuire refusing to meet with constituents or explaining why he voted to raise the costs of health care and groceries to give a $311,000 tax cut to billionaires.”
I said that having to pick between Macy and Perriello would be a dilemma for Democrats. Let me modify that: It would only be a dilemma for Democrats in that district. Democrats beyond that — such as those anonymous mapmakers in Washington or even House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — probably don’t care who wins. For them, anyone with a “D” after their name will do. On the ground, though, these are the real-life choices that would have to be made. Whether it’s Macy or Perriello, one way or another the party would be forced to discard a potentially strong candidate just so the party can guarantee a victory in districts that both these candidates surely think they might be able to win anyway. That may be a cold-eyed calculation from afar that certainty is better than risk, but it doesn’t seem to show much faith in the party’s ability to win over the voters that Democrats profess to want to represent.
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